You Craft Too Much When.....

Seaford Beach July 2009

I'm playing around with these words for a scrapbook page I'm making:

I know that I craft tooo much when:

- STORAGE for my stash becomes a problem
- there's no time to keep stash TIDY, I'd rather be crafting
- I subscribe to TWO scrapbook magazines at the same time
- I time my days off to coincide with QVC Craft Days
- craft PARCELS arrive in the post every other day
- the POSTMAN doesn't knock anymore, just throws the parcels in the lobby
- I have to set a monthly BUDGET for Craft
- attending a MONTHLY scrapbook crop just isn't enough
- I have a large box of handmade CARDS and no-one to send them to
- I keep IDEAS books for quotes, card-making examples and scrapbook page photos
- I have a scrapbook page design in my head BEFORE I take the photos
- my FAVOURITES on the computer are all craft sites

- I check BLOGS every day to see what's new
- I've more blog FRIENDS than family members
- I'd rather be crafting than outdoors on a SUNNY DAY.......

I'm sure you can come up with lots more of your own. I'd love to hear what your 'crafting too much' examples would be.

Easy Minibook

Recently I’ve been re-organising the pages in my scrapbooks and naming each book to make it easier to find specific pages. The inspiration came from reading 'The Big Picture' by Stacy Julian http://stacysbigpicture.typepad.com/  a couple of years ago but it's taken me this long to get around to it! And having taken the time out to do that chore, I’ve discovered something interesting, well it’s interesting to me! I have only 3 pages out of six albums that have just one photo on the page.

I must admit, although I enjoy trying new techniques on my pages, and love playing with embellishments just like everyone else, I do like the photos to tell the story and usually keep any journaling to a minimum. As I scrapbook using only 12x12 pages, there’s plenty of space for multiple photos, and it seems, that’s what I do - scrap multiple photos on a page.

I have recently inherited some old photos of my sister and I when we were children in the 1960’s. These photos are very small, typically 3.5x 2.5 inches, and would be lost on a 12x12 page. It’s taken me a while to come up with a solution to the problem but this afternoon I made a mini book and a slipcase for it to live in, which I think does them justice.

I must apologise for the image quality of the minibook photos. As mentioned in my last post, my daughter has the memory card from my camera with her in Italy, so I had to find her Canon SLR and give that a try. I know serious photographers prefer an SLR if they can afford one, but all those buttons, I had trouble working them out!

By the way, I’m the child who appears on the front cover and without her shirt!

My supplies were very few: I used a sheet of red card, a sheet of black, one K&Co paper, a flower punch and black cord (saved from a gift I received).

It was a very quick and easy project, taking under two hours, and I enjoyed doing something other than my 'usual' scrapping format.

Choices

What is the Unwritten Rule that says when I'm tired and trying to get to sleep my brain whirls around coming up with award-winning, flowing, perfect prose? Yet when I'm sat here trying to write, no clever words come to mind?

Anyway, upon signing up for this Blog I had to fill in the usual forms including 'My Profile'. Such questions requiring an answer like 'my favourite music'. I mulled over the obvious choices and decided to be minimalist, after all you don't want an extensive list when reading a Profile do you? Just a snapshot of the person. So, I typed in Rock....but I also like R&B and Soul (but not the really old stuff) and Santana (what category does he come under?) ..... but I don't necessarily like all Rock songs either. Arghh!

After extensive deliberation I left my entry as 'Rock'.

Then I was faced with 'what are my favourite movies?' and 'what are my favourite books?' ...... for goodness sake! I could be here all night!!

Maybe I shouldn't be blogging, perhaps I should be 'Twittering'? Surely twittering would focus my mind, clarify my ideas? Keeping to a set number of characters would definitely stop the waffle, wouldn't it? Nah. That's not me at all!

The scrapbook page above was made earlier this year. A secret message which should be hidden behind one of the smaller photos (but is actually obscuring it) reads - 'All the decoration in our house is a compromise as my husband would paint all the walls Magnolia if I'd let him! Our divan needed replacing and I quite liked the idea of a metal bedstead, which him indoors was completely against. So our new bed is entirely my choice and I just love it!